During the night of 8th January my insides felt as thought they were exploding, and I hardly slept at all. Evidently I ate something I shouldn’t have, and whatever it was, it cleaned out the contents of the entire length of my digestive tract with remarkable speed. The blame seemed to point squarely at the coca leaves and lime, which I had been munching with perhaps far too much enthusiasm and inexperience, and likely consumed far more than was good for me.
There wasn’t much I could do about it except suffer the consequences, and delay my departure into Bolivia the following morning. The rest of the crowd headed off early, and I eventually followed late morning on a relatively comfortable bus. Entry into Bolivia was easy enough, but then I had a 2 hour wait in Copacabana for a connection to La Paz. The road onwards was rough and involved a ferry crossing. Once on the other side the road improved and the bus sped across the altiplano towards La Paz.
What struck me again was the clarity of the air – mountains that looked close enough to reach in 15 minutes seemed to shrink away as we sped in their direction, since they were actually 150 km away or more. The altiplano was much drier than I had expected – a barren wasteland in many places. I had trouble figuring out how the population of llamas and alpacas survived, let alone the human beings…
Finally the bus descended from the altiplano at 4000m into the deep bowl that contains the city of La Paz, the centre of which is “down” at 3600m (12,000 feet). I hadn’t had more than just a little water during the trip, and I felt very weak. I staggered a little way from the bus terminal to an area of cheap hotels, and checked into Hotel Italia. It was light and clean and the smell reminded me of university halls of residence. Across the road a café served me some toast, which was more than I really felt like eating…
In the morning (10th January) I walked to the Post Office to collect my third batch of poste restante mail. On the way I found a familiar face – Rhonda the American from the train to Puno. It has now become totally unsurprising to randomly run into travellers who I already know. There were 9 items of mail waiting for me, which made me wonder if the mail that my sister had forwarded to La Paz instead of Panama had already been returned, despite my letter from Costa Rica. But mail was mail, and I spent a happy hour back at Hotel Italia reading everything, while I consumed toast and chamomile tea.
Later I went to obtain more travellers cheques from the Amex office. This was remarkably easy – I was able to use my Amex card to buy $1200 worth of cheques from the ATM – which I hope will be enough to see me through most of the rest of South America. That was enough excitement for one day in my weakened state, and I headed back to my hotel to write letters, and then later (over some soup) chat to a British traveller called Andrew, who also studied at Cambridge and is also doing a round the world trip.
Next day (11th January) started slowly: breakfast (toast and chamomile tea yet again) with Andrew over in Hotel Andes, where we got chatting to an Argentinean. I have never met anyone from Argentina before. His accent sounded a bit strange – something that my book had warned me about. The rest of the day was spent letter writing, then I went to the post office to send the letters, and also send a parcel back to the UK containing some rolls of film and memorabilia from Peru.
I ran into Paul and Rachel yet again, and discussed plans. I am keen to investigate what claims to be “The World’s Highest Ski Resort” at Chacaltaya nearby, and to see if this will be feasible I went to the Club Andino (this being the organisation that runs the bus and the lift). It sounds doable, and I reserved a ride on the bus next day. I felt restored enough to later go for a Chinese meal with Paul.
In the morning, however, I regretted the Chinese meal, since I felt my insides inflating once more. I therefore went to the Club Andino first thing, to change my ski-bus booking until the next day, and then moved to the Hostal Austria near the main Plaza, where there are rather more in the way of backpackers staying, and thus more information. Paul and Rachel are also staying here. I rested all morning and allowed my insides to settle down somewhat. At midday Paul and Rachel finally surfaced. They are not early risers, and told me that while travelling with the 2 Israelis, every morning involved being woken up by Yossi’s increasingly impatient call, repeated over and over again: “Paul!” “Rachel!” “Paul!!!” “Rachel!!!”.
I rang my sister in Bedfordshire to ask if the undeveloped slide films that I have sent home have been processed, and if the results look OK – she said the photos looked fine, which is a relief. In the afternoon I went with Paul to an attraction about 8 km (5 miles) from the centre of La Paz where strange rock formations form a photogenic labyrinth. It is called the Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon).
Since there is a good communal kitchen at Hostal Austria, I bought some pasta to cook, this being perhaps better than Chinese food, for my still delicate insides.
With luck I’ll be fit enough for some record-breaking high-altitude skiing tomorrow…
I don’t think there’s been a single picture of you? ?
😀 This was before selfies were invented, let alone selfie sticks…